Using a sleek interface similar to a pared-down Flash, DoInk lets users sketch 2D objects, animate them with keyframes and vectors, and upload them to the site for public viewing. YouTube integration is baked in, and finished clips are embeddable and downloadable as .swf files. Most impressive is the collaborative gallery -- need a camel, a waterfall, or a tree, but too lazy to make one yourself? Just search the database and, like with Spore, browse a graphical menu of objects uploaded by the community.

DoInk is owned and operated by a small Massachusetts start-up, so it has a cozy feel and a responsive dev team. The site is still in beta, so it's a tad rough around the edges, but it's already pretty robust and new features are on the way. Share ideas in the forum, or keep track of development with the official blog, which also interviews popular animators from the community on a regular basis.

I could see memes popping up as time goes on; if you have access to other people's additions, there is a good chance the best ones will be used the most often. Survival of the fittest animation pieces, I guess.

If all of the characters and backgrounds of a new project were created and shared, people could make their own episodes of the same show.

Hopefully, in the future, they'll add sound as an option. Not sure how they'd do that, but I bet they're working on it.posted by defenestration at 11:15 AM on April 20, 2009

This has a lot of potential, but the current animations are pretty bad. Most of them are just someone re-drawing something found elsewhere, not even animated.posted by scottreynen at 12:23 PM on April 20, 2009

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